Gender Mainstreaming in Climate Change Mitigation Policy

Date: 25th October, 2018

Venue: Marigold, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, 110003, India

Inaugural Session

Setting the Context: Dr. Kavya Michael, TERI

Duration: 11:00- 11:35

The work on mainstreaming gender perspectives with mitigation policy is

limited.

A lot of academic outputs do not enter the realm of policy. In the same

way there is a lack of knowledge on policy landscape in academia.

This platform will engage academia, policymakers, practitioners and

government officials to deliberate, discuss and arrive at constructive

solutions to mainstream gender into climate policies.

Welcome Address: Dr. Prodipto Gosh, TERI

o While there are many facets of climate change policy which have been

debated in various for a, but the gender aspect has generally been given a

short swift.

o During the policy design and appraisal, gender is one of the screens

through which a policy must pass. But policies are not designed through a

ground up approach taking into account gender issues.

o The Chipko Movement was an indigenous and homegrown movement by

rural women who depended on natural resources for their livelihoods. If

women were formally involved in the decision making bodies, the question

of deforestation would have been avoided. The lesson drawn through the

movement is the need to empower women to be involved in decision

making.

o TERI’s Lighting a Billion Lights Campaign creates a lot of initiatives for

women with respect to GHG mitigation. The whole progr am was centered

on development of a cadre of women entrepreneurs who were involved in

a business model to earn their livelihood. But the issue was that women

required access to financial capital which made it less replicable. For

replicability on a large scale, financial instruments need to recognize that

an activity is bankable and identify structures to direct the flow of capital

to an activity.

o Another issue is that the structure of workplace in India is such that a lot

of travel is required to get to work, in an environment in which it is very

difficult to address the domestic responsibilities of either partner . To

address these issues about child bearing, domestic responsibilities by

looking at models of implementation of appropriate technologies.

o Behind the lack of adoption of technological options which address the

question of gender mainstreaming, there is an empowerment gap which

needs to be addressed.

o Empowerment is gradually happening but we still need to go far in

mainstreaming women, rights, issues, obligations and an appropriate

balance of responsibilities between men and women in workplace and

homes.

Opening Remarks: Mr. Erlend Draget, Royal Norwegian Embassy

o Norway has a long tradition of working for women rights and gender

equality. Including women in decision making has been invaluable to

Norway’s development.

o Women need to take part in decision making processes just like men. This

generates better decisions and more economic development.

o Integrating gender perspectives has led to a range of family oriented

policies and enabled higher women participation.

o Gender equality must be at the heart of international gender if we need to

achieve the sustainable development goals.

o Substituting biomass with gas not only reduces emissions but also creates

additional benefits for women’s health and security. In this regard PM

Modi’s initiative to provide LPG cylinders for cooking is a great

achievement.

o Transport sector needs to go through changes in many places of the world

since men and women have different travel patterns reflecting their role

in their families and communities.

o Gender perspectives need to be identified, shared and integrated into the

policies to combat all the challenges related to climate change. It would

be a missed opportunity if gender aspects are not thoroughly reflected in

the policies created to achieve our common climate goals.

Keynote Address: Joint Secretary K. Moses Chalai, Ministry of Women and Child

Development

o Women carry the historical baggage of disadvantages, discriminations and

vulnerabilities because of which they get hit harder in times of adverse

climate change episodes.

o Both men and women suffer due to such adversities but the suffering of

women becomes disproportionate.

o Swachch Bharat Mission of India provides a good example to address such

a problem. Both men and women suffer due to lack of toilets but the

vulnerability of women is higher due to higher risk of occurrence of sexual

assaults.

o The country has woken up to integrate gender concerns but that i s not

enough. For instance while finalizing the DPR for Mumbai Metro, the

officials made sure that women safety and security concerns are being

addressed.

o A persistent engagement and support of institutions and stakeholders

with the Ministries will be essential to build ministerial capacity on gender

issues.

o Gender budgeting at the ministerial level is another important tool for

mainstreaming gender issues and needs.

Special Lecture: Prof. Seema Arora-Jonsson, Swedish University of Agricultural

Sciences

Title: Virtue and Vulnerability: Discourses on Women, Gender and Climate Change.

Duration: 11:35-12:00

o Internationally, there is a great anxiety about gender and environmental

policy and practice today.

o Gender has been fairly absent in climate discussions, it has begun to be

given some attention. Gender research tends to have a marginal impact on

climate practice on ground.

o She highlighted on the reasons for the link between research and

everyday work being more elusive and the gap between knowledge and

action.

o Gender is not equal to women as it is often assumed. Gender is the

organisation of relationships of power and how those determine outcomes

in the real world.

o Most of the studies in the context of gender and climate change deal with

women. 2 themes stand out in the literature; Women are vulnerable and

women are virtuous.

o These themes are based on 3 unquestioned truths about women; Women

are the poorest of the poor, more prone to die in natural calamities and

are environmentally conscious .

1st Truism: Women are poorest of the poor

Since women represent a disproportionate share of the poor, they are

likely to be disproportionately vulnerable.

70% of people below poverty line in developing word are women.

Women eat the least and last.

Contesting the above arguments:

o There is feminisation of poverty

o 70 % figure above is anecdotal rather than being statistically rigorous

(No scientific study cited to show that this assertion is correct)

o Such facts are dangerous because they lead to a fallacy that poverty

alleviation will lead to gender equality

2nd Truism: Women are most prone to die in natural calamities

Women are 14% more likely to die in natural calamities due to climate

change

Evidences: Asian Tsunami, Bangladesh Cyclone and European Heatwave

Contesting the above arguments:

o Lack of evidence to show who dies more. Most of the estimates

are based on common sense .

o Study by Plumper (LSE): Impact of disasters on life expectancy is

clearly contingent on socio economic factors.

o While poverty is the key component of vulnerability, it is not

only or necessarily the best in terms of predicting impact (Sara

Bradshaw).

o The conclusion which can be made through this study is that

disasters exacerbate existing inequalities. The analysis must be

context dependent.

3rd Truism: Women are more environmentally conscious

Women are more sensitive to risk, more prepared for

behavioural change and more likely to support environmental

policies.

Research from Sweden: Women tend to worry more about

environment

Men are more polluting as compared to women as they drive

more while women tend to us public transport more.

Rich or poor, men pollute more while women have a smaller

ecological footprint.

Contesting the above arguments:

o A lot of the climate change literature goes back to the early

women and development debated that have been subjected to

extensive critiques.

Despite rigorous research on the contrary we keep falling back to the

cliché due to the arguments about women’s vulnerability and virtue which

are driven in large part by the desire to put women in unequal gender

relations on the map of climate change discourse.

Gender and power relations are generally ignored and made invisible in

climate debates.

Greater responsibility for poverty reduction is put on women and poverty

alleviation actually becomes a feminization of responsibility.

Mere presence of women does not guarantee voice. Voice needs

structural change which is much larger than participation.” Prof. Jonsson

mentioned that a mechanism to engage effective participation of women

is crucial for mainstreaming gender concerns in mit igation policies.

Session 1

Setting the background: Tracking Progress on the Gender Action Plan

Duration: 12:00 - 14:00

Chair: Dr. Prodipto Ghosh, Distinguished Fellow, TERI

Discussants:

Ms. Rajasree Ray, Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance

Ms. Suhela Khan, Programme Coordinator, UN Women

Mr. Shantanu Gaikwad, Programme Coordinator, Landesa

This session discussed the latest developments with regards to the Gender Action

Plan and its importance to countries with varied levels of development. Part icular

attention will be brought to the Indian perspective .

Presentation: Ms. Arunima Hakhu, TERI

The argument for mainstreaming stakeholders affected by climate change

is twofold; the affected can be beneficiaries and initiators of climate

action and affected are not similarly affected.

The first mention of gender in climate change domain happened in

Marrakech which was to include participation of women. The second

milestone was hit in Doha which addressed the problem of effective

participation. The Lima Work program mainstreamed gender

responsibilities an justice into issues of climate change and build

capacities of female delegates to build effective participation. Another

important milestone was the inclusion of gender in Paris Agreement in

COP 20.

The deliberations at Bonn focused on informing and deliberating gender

responsive climate policies and addressed Monitoring and reporting

component of Gender Action Plan (GAP)

The discussions also highlighted the salience of GAP in terms of training

women and promoting effective participation.

GAP is presently at a stage where individual countries can submit their

plans and whole discourse is open to debate.

Visions of Canada and France on GAP: more focus on activities which they

want to do in Global South

Fiji and Sudan: envisioned a bottom up ef fort to mainstream gender.

Main idea that came forward from the discussions at Bonn was the even

though gender budgeting has happened, not many ministerial spaces talk

to each other.

GAP inherently presents itself as an opportunity for countries to pin point

grassroot problems and take up problems of distributional inequalities in

tailored bottom up approaches. This can potentially identify and overcome

impediments in participating through institutional channels.

India’s GAP submission: well drafted and an ambitious document, that

highlights the need for effort.

Mahila Shakti Kendra component of GAP especially focusses on

empowering rural women.

Criticisms of GAP :

o Does not clearly define targets; cobenefits are not clearly

delineated from the actual benefits

o Lack of defined timelines

o A clear definition of financial plans

o No MRV in place

This is a missed opportunity to challenge power relations since most of

the solutions are topical in nature and they don’t challenge the existing

hierarchies within the system.

Questions to the Panel

• Is decentralised climate action the way forward?

• How does the panel envisage the effective use of existing institutional

channels to further the impact of GAP?

• How does the panel envision the funding landscape?

• How can India’s GAP be made more reflective of gender justice concerns?

Discussant 1: Ms. Rajasree Ray

We need to see development in terms of context and weave dimensions

like access to resources, employment, access to financial resources and

credit into the implementation of adaptation and mitigation policies.

Climate change women representation:

o Report on Global gender and climate alliance, 2016 gives various

examples of how gender roles intersect with climate impacts.

o Only 12% of federal environment ministries globally are headed by

women (As of 2015).

o In UNFCCC, he term gender is missing but there are various

decisions subsequent to that which address gender concerns, most

prominent being the GAP.

o Participation of women in UNFCCC constitutes bodies is a concern.

The average participation is ranges between 30 -36% in 2008-16.

o Gender balance has improved but a lot more needs to be done.

Gender consideration in Thematic areas

o Adaptation: is an area which is well integrated with gender with

almost 16 decisions.

o Mitigation: Few decisions with gender consideration.

o Climate Finance: There are a lot of challenges like access to finance

for women. GEF has a policy on gender mainstreaming and a criteria

is also in place while reviewing financial mechanisms. GCF

governing instrument also clearly states the mandate of gender

sensitivity.

National context

o Role of women in decision making needs to be given more

attention.

o There is an opportunity for us to include gender considerations

when we develop our roadmap for implementation of NDCs.

Discussant 2: Ms. Suhela Khan

Agriculture plays a vital role in the country and is prone to climate

disasters.

There is a lot of feminization of agriculture happening. Women stay back

while men migrate to cities for work. Women do not have an alternative

livelihood opportunities that are less prone to climate disasters.

Un Women supports a national alliance of women farmers called MAKAM.

It has been observed that these farmers have a lot of traditional

knowledge on climate resilient practices and they adopt sustainable

methods of producing crops.

One of the needs is to document these sustainable practices and identify

those which can be integrated into policies.

We should also be mindful of the implementation challenges.

Some of the issues to be emphasized on include effective participation,

intersectionality to reflect on vulnerability and devising tracking indicators

for GAP.

Discussant 3: Mr. Shantanu Gaikwad

Need for context specific and correlated data

There is a requirement of a context specific research to identify how

mitigation can work in different areas of the world

Session 2: Mainstreaming Women into Development Policy in India with Mitigation

Co-benefits

Duration: 14:30 – 16:00

Chair: Prof. Seema Arora-Jonsson, Professor, Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural

Sciences

Discussants:

Dr. Fawzia Tarannum, Lecturer, TERI School of Advanced Studies

Mr. M. Rahul, Deputy Director, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance

Dr. Gudavarthy Vijay, Assistant Professor, School of Economics, University of

Hyderabad

Mr. Debajit Palit, Senior Fellow and Director, Rural Energy and Livelihoods, TERI

The session started with a presentation on academic arguments for gender justices including Teri’s

suggestions to mainstream gender into discussions an policies surrounding mitigation through an

evaluation of case studies. This was followed by comments from Discussants.

Presentation: Mainstreaming Gender into Climate Change Mitigation Policy in India

Dr. Kavya Michael and Ms. Kavya Bajaj, TERI

Dr. Kavya Michael started by mentioning that there is a lot of work on gender that is

emerging in both the policy practice landscape as well as the academic space. Ironically if we

see how the gender negotiations or narrative of gender are evolving in a technocratic

manner. And most of it is focused on economic instruments, technology or are market

related. This is attributed to the traditional gendered roles which are so implicit within the

society. Therefore the emerging landscape of climate change debate alienates gender and

gender concerns from its preview. From the social science perspective there are numerous

approaches that have been put forward to deal with human rights framework, sustainable

development, etc., but none of these approaches look at the structural composition and the

problems that come with it. Therefore the solutions that are offered are syntagmatic.

Further, the study conducted builds upon Professor Jonsson’s work (virtue and vulnerability

debate), where she mentions that there is universal categorization of women as vulnerable

entities which is a very problematic term because the term “vulnerability” is context specific

and often ignores power relations and elements like caste, class, race etc. therefore, there is

a strong need for Intersectional analysis and our policies and programs need to take these

intersection into account beforehand.

Effective participation is not just about the capacity but the voices and the agency that they

can put forward. So in this landscape where gender and climate change debate we can see

that there is a predominance3 of adaptation where the categorization of vulnerable entities

fit very easily. And then we have the Ecofeminism literature that attributes women’s role as

saviors of environment because of their biological attributes of care giving

A simple Google search on gender and mitigation generated results mostly on smokeless

chula.

The study began by understanding if there was more that could be linked to gender and

mitigation.

To be able to effectively mainstream gender into mitigation it was important to look at Co-

theories of gender justice to understand the root cause of categorization.

Theoretical framework:

Spaces of exclusion are determined by Political economy and androcentric cultural order.

Women are and have been attributed as reproductive labour mainly because of their intrinsic

nature of care giving due to which, in political economy, spaces of elusion mainly revolve

around: Redistribution and recognition.

Further, the theories around epistemic justice formulated by Miranda Fricker which talks

about justice relating to concepts of knowledge. Two forms of Exclusion as defined by

Miranda fricker include:

Testimonial injustice: Prejudice in the economy of credibility (as a women when you

speak in a group there is a prejudice due to her credibility is often limited. So even

when women occupy top seats as negotiators or they participate in formal space are

their voices taken seriously? Are they considered credible source of knowledge? This is

seen as a clear notion of injustice and it often becomes difficult to address this

because participation not always results in empowerment.)

Hermeneutical injustice: A gap in collective interpretive resources (lack of space for

women to participate and negotiate)

Sen’s capability approach addresses the above injustices by understanding the role of

functioning. In this framework inequalities are not normalized and the differences between

men and women are not accepted as normal. Sen further uses an adaptive scale of happy to

better understand the capabilities. Capabilities used for the current study:

Health

Income

Awareness

Agency

REDD+

It was noticed that there is only one mention of women in the entire document.

Existing policy landscape does not mainstream gender concerns effectively: Green

India mission and NDC do not explicitly talk about women and gender.

Quality of engagement restricted by a gender order that marginalizes their potential

contribution and interests: How can we ensure that the money reaches women?

REDD+ document provides a positive political space where issues such as women’s

secured land rights, Implementation of associated safeguards, Capacity building

measures can be plugged in therefore with this evolving document there is a space to

include women in the economy and as active agents.

Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY)

Ms Kavya Bajaj then presented the case of PMUY, whose main aim is to prevent negative

health implications due to exposure to indoor air pollution. Women and children below

poverty line (BPL) were identified as the main victim of air pollution therefore this PMUY aims

to provide 5 core LPG connections over 3 years to BPL households, free of cost, along with

financial assistance worth INR 1600 per connection.

• Spaces of Exclusion: The scheme, although cognizant of gender concerns, is restrictive

in both conceptualization and impact evaluation and therefore doesn’t provide a

robust policy design.

• Forms of Exclusion: There is no transformational and structural change in ideologies.

Women also have not been made aware. The scheme presupposes gender roles. The

inclusion of women in the framing of the scheme is suspect. Subsequent participation

of women in the scheme is limited to being beneficiaries.

• Channels of Inclusion: Shifting focus from number of connections to LPG consumption,

capacity building, addressing the affordability issues

• PMUY focuses of number of connections that have been issued rather than usage of

LPG therefore doesn’t fully addresses issues around health.

• Affordability gap which further exacerbates the issue.

Best Practice Framework: ENERGIA’s Women Led Energy Businesses

The key components of ENERGIA’s framework for a successful intervention that addresses

energy access by incorporating women are:

• Access to Finance

• Access to Technology

• Access to Enabling Environment

• Access to Partnerships

• Access to an Enabling Policy Framework

Economic empowerment of women further leads to healthier environment in terms of

education and health, which feeds back to the success of interventions.

Best Practice Case: Solar Mamas programme

Consist of the following which addresses the four Key Capabilities.

1. Solar engineer training programme creates capabilities:

Income generation

Awareness

Agency

2. ENRICHE sub-programme modules create capabilities:

Health

Income generation

Agency

Awareness

Questions to the Panel

1. How does the panel envision breaking institutionalized androcentric patterns?

2. How does the panel foresee greater coordination between ministries for effective

gender mainstreaming in climate policy?

3. How can India create constructive dialogue between practitioners, academics and

policy makers?

Discussant 1: Dr. Gudavarthy Vijay

Analyses can be extended by looking at Nancy Fraser’s work which looks at “framing

gender” since miss framing is the main issue that emerges.

We need to embed gender on different levels of policy because of women play

different roles in daily life which cumulatively represents here vulnerability.

(different levels: different vulnerability)

JFM adverse outcomes: those who are more educated, etc. those who are mostly

depended on forest are marginalised.

Lowest women representation in labour force market.

Therefore there is a need for context specific interventions based on concrete

conditions that women live in to be able formulate workable policies.

Under PMUY the need felt is in the light of normal justice as defined by Nancy Fraser.

Critically reflect long drawn project of social transformation. Gender centric

assessment health, another dimension that can be looked at could be: energy

efficiency (“saved time”) how women are spending the saved time?

Can we really look at all these programs as constituted by their respective value

chains? Is it possible to formulate the sense of gender clustering? This could possibly

break the shell of the traditional notion of universal categorisation.

Discussant 2: Dr. Fawzia Tarannum

Gender mainstreaming doesn’t relate to men or women but how we can together

succeed. It’s more about how we can come together and look at issues that cut across

such as class, caste, race, etc.

Over the time more women have been mainstreamed. Things have changed. But work

still needs to be done at the bottom of the pyramid that is poorest of the poor need

our attention.

Best way to address mainstreaming is by reflecting it in the policy which is also a

major challenge.

Water policy of India doesn’t mention gender but talks about needs and concerns of

SC and ST women.

Now the water policy is at a revision stage and it is important for people like us to

explicitly give recommendations so as to bring gender and concerns of women in the

policy landscape.

Gender budgeting is another important aspect. In context to water user association,

there has been no mention of women even with the increasing feminization of

agriculture and men out migration, women are not being addressed at famers but

farm labours. This often leads to their disbenefit in attaining credits, water sharing

rights, information (Digital divide) etc. Can there be a mechanism to transfer name

rights when men migrated.

We need to Policy each and every section and speak up so that gender can be

mainstreamed and such issues can be addressed.

There is also a need to analysis gender aspect of funding from organisations. Gender

disaggregated data (in terms of class, caste, race etc.,) should be collected at

grassroots level. Further, women often find themselves as figure heads, when elected

as the sarpanch. Decisions are taken by her husband (concept of sarpanch pati).

Education often brings in mainstreaming into the system.

When we are trying to mainstream gender, we need to look at gender relations, and

find ways to incorporate equity.

Systems should bring in more women on board, and should feel the need for it.

Women bring in the sense of empathy on the table.

Discussant 3: Mr. Debajit Palit

Mr. Debajit Palit spoke about his work on electricity supply chain with gendered lens.

The main result was that all energy policies in globally are gender blind. Policy might

provide equal opportunity but it never results in equal outcomes. There is a need for

gender equity policy.

Maharashtra state discom policy states that there is a 30% reservation for women but

there are not enough women in the state who are qualified for the job. We need to

understand if we are targeting the right policy and asking the right question? Policy

should enable working environment for women and policy interaction should also be

looked at.

Access to resources: Policy should aim at including women in ownership of land.

Assumption of policy makers is that the benefits would trickle down to women

irrespective of their social situation. Policy makers should look at the root cause to be

able to get in structural change in the society.

Major policies focus on small element of economic empowerment of women and

often doesn’t account if women actually have the control over the money.

Power to influence

In Nepal, when women got involved with distribution of solar lights, they learned the

art of speaking and got a chance to contest elections.

Technologies often give a chance to women to be involved in the decision making

process when staying away from family.

About 65% of the kitchens have electricity bulb. 35% of the kitchen that do not have

electric bulb was due to decision by the women because they wanted one bulb in the

living room and one in their child’s room where he/she can study.

But electricity alone may not be a game changer. Wilder legislation is needed. We

need to access the degree of empowerment the policy can offer and has resulted in.

When there is govt. meeting on any softer infrastructure projects, mostly women are

invited and when it is a large infrastructure, men are invited. There is a need for a

change in the mindset and societal transformation.

Discussant 4: Mr. M. Rahul

Mr. Rahul spoke about issues of policy deign. And mentioned that policy makers are

considered as know it all entities who can design the policies and it will address all the

issues policy design is an evolutionary process.

Bottom up approach is essential in policy making and recognizing that all policies can’t

be perfect.

Feminism doesn’t mean you are talking on gender but it is much larger than that.

3 stages in policy making:

1. Legal rights of equality. (constitution provides equal rights)

2. Indigenous knowledge material (there is a need to document such knowledge. In

Kerala women had the right of property but it is being impacted by the modern

idea.)

3. Positive actions: Ujjwala Yojana: positive action that can have positive impact on

women.

Structural transformation cannot be brought in thorough an individual policy. To have

a conclusive recommendation it is important to have robust data. Model is not

useless if the assumptions are wrong.

Society comprises of you and me and policy makers come from this society.